BaselWorld 2016: New Rolex Steel Daytona Flies Off The Blocks

Like a perfectly crafted pop song, this latest from Rolex serves all the right hooks.

BaselWorld 2016 hasn't even officially started and already the interweb is set abuzz by this brand new ticker. What we have is essentially the most sought-after sports model from the world's biggest watch brand - which is now made even more palatable, style-and price-wise.

Retailing for CHF11,800, the new Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona in Steel with Black Cerachrom Bezel Ref: 116500LN takes the collection back to its roots as a rally-inspired tool watch. In fact, the pairing of the black Cerachrom bezel with the steel case recalls an earlier model from 1965, when the iconic chronograph was fitted with a black Plexiglas bezel insert. Here, the monobloc Cerachrom bezel will be familiar to Rolex fans - a patented innovation made of high-tech ceramic that is scratch- and corrosion-resistant.

On the inside, the watch is powered by the standrad-setting Calibre 4130 Superlative Chronometer-certified automatic chronograph movement with column wheel. Accurate to -2/+2 seconds per day, the hardy timepiece is backed by an international five-year guarantee.

Naysayers will begrudge this new offering as kind of vanilla, arguing that Rolex hasn't broken any new ground. While that is true, the watch's iconic style, performance-driven virtue and new fangled technologies are all familiar territory established by none other than Rolex itself.

At a time where watch companies are scratching their heads over what sells amid a challenging retail market, this Swiss titan show just how it's done - by playing to its strengths, and making no apologies for it.

Alvin promises not to be a douche when talking about watches. He may have scoured the Basel and Geneva watch fairs for the past 15 years, and played an instrumental role to the growth of Singapore's pioneering horological and men's lifestyle publications, but the intrepid scribe seeks to learn something new with each story he writes.